LaunchPad

The second edition of LaunchPad was held on 18th February, in our campus. BITS Pilani is no new player when it comes to producing the most innovative minds of the nation. Organised by E-Cell, the event aims at being a grand confluence of various elements of the start-up ecosystem.

Like all budding fests, LaunchPad had its issues and challenges too. In the inaugural edition last year, E-Cell faced logistical challenges, and difficulty in getting participation – challenges that plague almost every venture or start-up – but it worked out in the end, after months of solid work put in by the LaunchPad OC.

There were plans to host the second edition of E-Cell at a venue outside campus in Hyderabad, but the idea was scrapped considering the very motive of E-Cell was to promote the start-up culture on-campus. The first edition of LaunchPad, in 2017, was a two-day event. This year, however, to make the summit more productive and enriching, it was decided to reduce the number of speakers and make it a one- day experience – increasing the focus on content and ensuring a non-stop compact summit with a multitude of events planned to great detail.

Buoyed by the quality of speakers in its inaugural edition, this edition of LaunchPad hosted a stellar line-up of influencers which include Jayesh Ranjan, IT Secretary to the Telangana Government, Hari Menon, CEO of BigBasket, Aparajita Roy, RA from RBI, Satyarth Priyadarshi, Marketing Head of JioChat, Jincy Samuel, COO of Coinsecure, and Nandini Vaidyanathan, EX-CEO of UTV.

Article by Vamsi BG